“Yes, but… is it really like that?”
“Oh, yes,” said Elizabeth breathlessly. “You will know, though. I have not forgotten our vow. We shall find this for you. We shall find the right man for you, and you… you will see it for yourself.”
Caroline turned to search her gaze. “All right.”
“We must think about it a bit differently, though. It cannot only be about a man’s status or his connections, you see. We must make sure that he…”
“What?” said Caroline.
“I don’t know,” said Elizabeth, furrowing her brow, because she had been stupidly blind about it with her own husband. She somehow had not seen how desperately he wanted her. Would she be able to see it if a man wanted Caroline in that way? “We must find someone who truly desires you.”
“But Eliza, men don’t want me,” said Caroline in a low and horrified voice.
“That isn’t true,” said Elizabeth firmly. “There are men who do want you, and when we get to London, we shall find them.”
Caroline gave her a look full of uncertainty and worry.
Elizabeth squeezed her arm very tightly. “We shall,” she insisted.
Later that afternoon, she and her husband took a walk outside alone, and he put his arm around her so that she was tucked tightly against him as they moved together, and she felt that same lovely small and soft and feminine feeling as she huddled into his warmth.
“It may be a bit rude,” said Mr. Darcy, “but I want us to take our leave on the morrow. I had intended to stay at least a week, but I had not anticipated what it would be like to be a newlywed, I don’t think. Mr. Bingley will understand. I want you all to myself.”
She flushed with warmth at that. She wanted to be kept that way, all his, just the two of them. She started to acquiesce, and then she thought of Caroline. “Actually, I feel I must speak to you about something regarding that.”
“Oh, this sounds serious,” he said in a tone that conveyed he did not feel serious about anything at all. “If you are worried about leaving your family behind, Lizzy, you must realize that we cannot be situated near your family. I do not live in the part of the country, and if—”
“No, no,” she said. “I firmly believe there is nothing good in a wife being situated too near her family.”
He chuckled a deep-belly laugh.
“I wish to go to London,” she said.
He considered. “All right. London it is.”
“I wish… to bring Caroline.”
He tightened his grip on her shoulders. “You and Miss Bingley are fast friends, this I know, but she will be bored out of her mind with us. We shan’t be able to give her any attention, because we are going to be entirely preoccupied with each other. I am nearly obsessed with you, Elizabeth. I don’t know how to explain it, but whatever there was between us before, now—”
“No, no, I feel it, too,” she said. She sighed. “All right, I feel I must tell you something and I don’t know if you will like it. You may even be angry. But once you know, you’ll understand.”
“Mmm, this sounds even more serious.” He was still amused. Not even the idea of being angry had ruffled him. He trusted her implicitly, and she worried about that.
Eventually, he will see you for what you truly are,she thought.How will he feel about you then?
“The letter that brought you to Hertfordshire, it was not written by Mr. Bingley,” she said.
“What?” Now, he stopped his movement, so they were no longer walking. He still kept his arm around her, though.
She looked up at him, searching his expression. “Caroline sent it. It was a ruse. She had taken a fancy to you, and she thought that if she could entice you here that somehow, she and I… oh, we have a tendency to matchmaking, the two of us—”
“Your sister told me you two like to play at setting people up with each other but that it is usually people who are already inclined to each other, that you are taking credit for things that would have naturally happened.”
“Well, that is because, with my sister and her husband, it was that way, but we have improved in our techniques,” said Elizabeth. “Regardless of that, the point is, you werehere forher, and she has been abundantly gracious about the way it has gone instead. She didn’t have to be so good about it. She could have been quite angry with me—”
“Wait a moment,” said Mr. Darcy, and now he removed his hand from her shoulder. “You are speaking as if Miss Bingley truly thought she had some kind of claim on me, which is frankly preposterous, because for me to marry a woman like her, with money from trade, and absolutely no connections of any kind, would have been insupportable.”
A wave of dislike passed through her. Oh, she had forgotten about this part of him. How was it that their joining had wiped out all of that? He was so self-important, was he not? She grimaced.
